Today I will have pleasure to present my second session with new adepts of Paths of Glory – Marcin and Krzysztof. They are very excited about getting into the world of that fantastic game – you can already see it in the initial meeting , which can be seen here: New adepts of Paths of Glory
This time we decided to start a 3-player game – with me being the Central Powers, Krzysztof Eastern Allies and Marcin Western Allies. We resigned from that variant restrictions, where Allies can play a card only for one front – that gave our new player much more flexibility. And of course, it was training experience and the main purpose to have a lot of fun! So, let us plunge into the session report and see what happened!
TURN 1
WESTERN FRONT:
- well, the start is classical, with Guns of August, Liege fort destroyed and French 5th Army shattered
- however, after initial success, I am not pushing hard here bur rather play events for War Commitment
EASTERN FRONT:
- Serbian front is stable, both sides cumulate forces
- on Carpathian front, 3rd Austrian Army is being classically destroyed with Lemberg falling into Russian army hands
- similarly classical is German raid on eastern Russia (actually, Poland region)
- thanks to many events played be my, Turkey joins Central powers
TURN 2
WESTERN FRONT:
- Germans passive in the North while in the south they take alpine fort…
- … however France (Marcin) very quickly grasps key Allies strategy on that front and initiates war of attrition. That will be main theme here for next turns.
EASTERN FRONT:
- very dynamic and decisive move of Russians (Krzysztof) to take Przemysl is stopped by entrenching a full Austrian army there
- German War Machine – after amassing the reinforcements – starts to steam-roll through Kingdom of Poland – up to Warsaw!
- in Balkans all is quiet…
TURN 3
WESTERN FRONT:
- no changes in the West –as far as front lines are concerned
- however, bloody French attacks starts to deplete my forces
EASTERN FRONT:
- the dynamic changes of situation are not stopping here – another Russian fort falls
- however, on the Middle East front the Caucasian army arrives – from next turn we can see a lot of interesting events
- key turning point is around Przemysl; the furious Russian attacks are repelled with high losses on Austrian side; fortunately relief in the form of Germans in Kingdom of Poland are soon to arrive.
TURN 4
WESTERN FRONT:
- yes, again, no front changes
- but the loses in my armies are so high that I need to re-deploy some of eastern forces!
EASTERN FRONT:
- Brest and Kowno forts fall to German juggernaut
- large-scale Caucasian offensive starts, destroying all Turks in the path; only amassing 3 corps plus good event allows me to stop this
TURN 5
WESTERN FRONT:
- another series of attrition attacks by French
- all German reinforcements go to that front to keep the line
EASTERN FRONT:
- and here we have a turning point on Eastern side – large-scale breakthrough at the most north part occurs, with Riga, Minsk and Vilnus falling
- Russians immediately re-group forces from Premsyl to attack next turn overextended German lines
- Bulgaria joins Central Powers and immediately moves 3 corps to Ottoman Empire where situation becomes critical…
- …as MEF lands in Anatolia while Caucasian army breaks through Turkish corps
SUMMARY
At this moment in time we had to finish as game went well into the night. 5 turns is quite a lot taking into account the experience of Marcin and Krzysztof. What is more, we started events which I did not have possibility to see with guys earlier – like Bulgaria entry or MEF landing. We had so much fun and the situation was getting more and more interesting. We would probably will finish with collapse of Turkey and Russia plus depleted Germans in West. Al could happen then…
Stay tuned, next reviews will come.
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